All this good news about bloody Scotland is giving me lockjaw!
On Reporting Scotland last night, presenter Jackie Bird managed to squeeze this out between gritted everything:
‘Scotland’s unemployment rate has hit a new record low. The number of people out of work from October to December was down by 10 000 from the previous quarter to 96 000. The Scottish unemployment rate is three and a half percent. That’s below the UK rate of four percent of the workforce.’
3.5 is seven eighths or 87.5% of 4. So, it’s also one eighth or 12.5% less. So, unemployment in Scotland is 12.5% lower than in the UK. Using Reporting Scotland guidelines 12.5 is nearly 13.
Talking-up Scotland 
I won’t mention potential rounding errors there John because, as you’ve said, you are using RS guidelines on calculations, so it looks accurate to me 😉
Have you looked at any of the Progress Scotland stuff yet? Here’s one of their twittery things:
https://mobile.twitter.com/progressscot/status/1097890478245273600
They seem to be focusing on no-to-yes, which we all know phantom power has been doing – it is a good idea mind, and maybe they’ll get ‘higher status’ folk on – if my suspicion that this was originally an Alex Salmond initiative is right, I think he’d have managed to get a fair number of the great and (not so) good – so good luck to Angus, but he has a lot of catching up to do.
‘Progress’ is a good word, it implies travel, improvement.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks. I’ve paid but not looked yet. I’m new writing obsessed all the time reading only as long as needed to find something to write about.
LikeLike
It’s an illness.
LikeLiked by 2 people
It’s a focused time management skill. Honest. I read that somewhere.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Some more thoughts on the words we use: they do influence how we think, and how we frame discussions. I pulled up Richard Murphy on using ‘threaten the union’ in his list of -bad things about Brexit- implying that the union is somehow a good thing, I wrote:
This idea that the Union is somehow a good thing is really just state propaganda – I don’t think people in England are aware of how much people in Scotland, Ireland and Wales really do want to be a ‘family of nations’ – we all have a long history together, alongside England – and cooperation and the common travel area and all those things are very important to us all. The family of nations, though, should involve all the nations having autonomy over their own affairs; true cooperation comes when we work together as independent states, and can respect each other, not when one subjugates the rest.
It is not morally right to deny any nation the right to self-determination (and legally, through human rights laws I think), and I would have thought the benefits to all the nations of the UK would be enhanced by us all being allowed to develop our own cultures and economies independently – we can see this in Ireland – it did not become a ‘foreign’ nation, and the the UK has strong and deep ties with it. The union is a messy, constitutionally inconsistent beast that should be done away with. There is a better way, and that is with all of us working together as separate states.
If you actually try and delve into any of the constitutional articles of England and Scotland, even a shallow delve tells you how incompatible they are (most people don’t seem to be aware they are different, of course).
So, I believe that implying the union is a good thing is not thought out, it is just the ‘acceptable’ thing to think according to the state (for their own reasons), and that if the union was dissolved there would be much better things for all of us in the future. The objections (a proportion of the population of) Scotland has is very specifically to Westminster rule – nothing more, nothing less. Consider all the things that make you think life would be worse if there was no union – are they real?
———–
He suggested that the Brexit version of the union going is for ‘the wrong reasons’ – maybe, but we have to be pragmatic, there will not be any ideological nirvana here, and we need to use whatever opportunities arise.
So, instead of ‘breaking up’ the union, ‘threaten’ and other such negative words, things like dissolving the union are definitely better, or looking at how the ‘union’ should change into one of independent states working together, not a subjugating ruling state controlling the others. A treaty reframed, renewed, cooperation from equal respect.
I know it is just a nuance, but every little helps.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Interesting. I like. You can be Tus Nuance Correspondent too.
LikeLike
Cool! …
How many TuS appointments do I have now? What are they again, and how much am I getting paid for them all? Does this mean an increase in salary?
LikeLiked by 1 person
12? Flexible, nothing, no. You do it for love.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hmm. Not too sure about those terms & conditions,,,
LikeLiked by 1 person
A big thank you John for all your work , this constant twisting of facts and figures with one aim in mind ,protect this rancid union must be depressing ,This precious union is dead but wont lie down ,your work should be being done by journalists in the Scottish media ,maybe one day they will find a spine and be embarrassed enough for once to actually attempt to give the public the truth and not the usual press release from one of the unionist parties .
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks. I’ve developed a taste for blood.
LikeLike
Haven’t written to you for ages but I’d just like to thank you for the refreshing realism and [as opposed to the constant doing down of Scotland by the British nationalist media] optimism you bring to the question of Scotland’s economy and politics, present and future.
LikeLike
Thanks Dan. Encouragement helps even older bairns like me.
LikeLike
Theresa May in court this morning? Nana just posted this but hadn’t time to investigate it, now I’m posting it without investigating – it appears the court case, to which Theresa May is being called, is being live streamed at 10am, so, In case anyone is interested:
Illegality of Brexit?
https://mobile.twitter.com/holgersdaughter/status/1098277182504341504
LikeLike
Thanks. Fascinating. Salary increased to Research Officer Grade 3
LikeLike
Hmm, that’ll be under the same terms and conditions I expect??
Well, they lost the case against Theresa May, so she wasn’t proven to have acted illegally. Sounds like there is a pile of lawyers (that’s the collective term?) on the case, so doubt it stops there.
LikeLike